Note 65 — Chapter V · HYPNOTISM

I am inclined to think that this is always the case. For a long time the lethargic state was supposed at the Salpêtrière to preclude all knowledge of what was going on; and I have heard Charcot speak before a deeply-entranced subject as if there were no danger of her gathering hints as to what he expected her to do. I believe that his patients did subliminally receive such hints, and work them out in their own hypnotic behaviour. On the other hand, I have heard the late Dr. Auguste Voisin, one of the most persistent and successful of hypnotisers, make suggestion after suggestion to a subject apparently almost comatose,—which suggestions, nevertheless, she obeyed as soon as she awoke.